The British Chapter Committee is preparing a scheme of outreach activities for interested members and their spouses/partners. The objective is to provide information on opportunities for continuing to use professional and intellectual skills by working with interested partners (NGOs, aid agencies, schools/colleges). This might include lecturing and consulting assignments whereby retirees would provide short-term, professional services (generally voluntarily) to organisations. It is anticipated that many of the requests for assistance from would come from British-based organizations and much of the work would be home based. This scheme would also provide a link to the Bank's central electronic database Retirees, Spouses and Volunteers Program (RSVP).
In this regard, the British Chapter Board is working with the Cranfield Trust to explore possibilities for providing free consultant services to development charities using the organisational and technical experience of the Trust and the human capital of the 1818 Society British Chapter. The Trust was established in 1988 to provide a free consulting service to voluntary organisations working to address issues of poverty, disability or disadvantage mostly in the form of management advice, covering business or strategic planning, marketing, IT, finance and human resources. The Trust takes on around 150 new projects a year and, at present, these are short term and confined to the UK although it has strong links with several international and some smaller development organisations. The Trust has a register of 500 volunteers (mostly Cranfield College of Management alumni) and projects are programmed to fit around volunteers' work and other commitments. A typical project takes about 6-8 days spread over 2 -3 months. Volunteers act as mentors or provide technical expertise that the Trust's clients would otherwise not be able to afford. Clients must pay all out of pocket expenses incurred by volunteers. It is anticipated that around 50 of the Society's British Chapter members would join the Trust's register initially. |
